World’s Game Brings Out Some Strange Story Lines
There is a widespread feeling in the United States that if it’s weird, it must be soccer.
With that in mind, here is an offering of some of the more unusual items that have hummed across the international soccer wires during the first three months of 2001:
MOOOOVING ALONG
Disgruntled by the appalling state of the field--that’s pitch to you football purists--a group of Ajax Amsterdam fans in January turned two cows loose inside the stadium.
The Amsterdam Arena, as it is known, was opened in 1996, but it has proven virtually impossible to get grass to flourish there. So far, the pitch has been replaced 24 times.
It might be OK now. One of the cows left an organic contribution to help the turf along.
JUST MY SIZE
Goalkeeper Sam Kawalya was cut from the Uganda national team in January not because he was no good but because he was up to no good.
Kawalya was an adequate keeper, except that he kept some things too. Included were gloves and boots that belonged to the Ugandan soccer federation, which was not amused.
DOG DAYS OF SPRING
The game between the under-21 national teams of Greece and Germany was just getting into its flow in Athens last month when an additional “player” ran onto the field.
This one had four legs, a tail and a pretty good turn of speed. It took the real players four minutes to catch the mongrel and carry him off.
The incident, seen live on television throughout Europe, will have brought a smile to the face of Coach Carlos Bianchi, who led Boca Juniors to the Argentine league championship in December.
“It might seem a bit selfish,” Bianchi said at the time, “but I want to dedicate this to my dog, who died two days ago.”
NO THANKS, WE’LL STAND
Ninety-one percent of 900,000 fans surveyed through the https://fa-premier.com Web site in England favor a return of standing areas at British stadiums.
Terraces, as they are known, have been banned since the Hillsborough Stadium disaster in 1989, when 96 fans were killed in a crush as fans packed into overcrowded standing areas.
Fans believe that government-imposed all-seat stadiums have brought higher ticket prices, causing lower-income fans to be shut out, and that the atmosphere at games also has suffered.
Apparently, they won’t stand for it any longer.
SONG SUNG BLUE
When it comes to weird, it’s difficult to top the Norwegians.
It seems the Lillestroem team has hired singer Rune Rudberg, a self-proclaimed “champion lover,” to perform at its season opener later this month.
The idea, coupled with half-price tickets and special prizes, is to entice 1,000 women to sit in a female-only grandstand and, hopefully, to become Lillestroem fans, thereby raising attendance by 20%.
Rudberg is willing to do his part, but with a proviso.
“I can perform both before and after the match,” he said. “But I have to be allowed time to watch the game.”
YOU DON’T SAY
While Lillestroem is luring fans, the Slovenian team Dravograd has seen its attendance cut by one.
League officials banned Dravograd’s stadium announcer from going anywhere near a microphone for three months because of his “insult and slander of the players from [visiting] Koper before the match and during the halftime break.”
A PROGRAMMING NOTE
England’s Rio Ferdinand is the world’s most expensive defender, having been bought by Leeds United from West Ham United for $25.45 million in November.
Imagine Leeds’ delight, then, when Ferdinand had to miss a couple of games in January because he was glued to the box.
“He was watching television and had his foot up on the coffee table,” explained David O’Leary, Leeds’ manager. “He had it there in a certain position for a number of hours . . . and strained a tendon behind his knee.”
THE FIX IS IN
It takes a certain kind of nerve to do what one Romanian fan did in Bucharest not long ago.
Recognizing that the sport in Romania is rife with allegations of match-fixing and referee corruption, the supporter of first-division Brasov asked club officials to pay fans a 10% cut from money he said they are pocketing for throwing matches.
“We want a share of the tainted money to compensate us for cheering on our team pointlessly,” he told a local television station.
SAD STATEMENT
Finally, a note that is not so much amusing as it is sad.
When Nigeria failed to defeat Ghana in a World Cup 2002 qualifying match in Accra in March, one fan was so distraught that he took his own life.
The unidentified man from the southern Nigerian town of Umuahia had threatened to do so beforehand, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
“When he said it, we thought he was joking,” NAN quoted a witness as saying. “But surprisingly, immediately after the match he took out a small bottle from his pocket and drank the contents.
“It was when he started foaming in the mouth a few minutes after and subsequently died that we realized it was not a joke.”
In soccer, as in life, the weird can be mixed with the tragic.
